Since it has been raining and is cloudy I am not in the woods today. Instead I have been looking up quotes about flowers.
Georgia O’Keefe said that “. . . nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” She also added that she would paint the flowers “big” so that even busy New Yorkers would take the time to see what she saw of flowers.
I love macro photographing the flowers and experiencing and sharing them on that larger scale too. In the process I spend the time which deepens my acquaintance with them. It really is intoxicating; I have at times had to sit down to steady myself from the overwhelming delight of the experience of them.
One who is unfamiliar with the woods might, from my pictures, imagine a stunning forest display of form and color but I think they would be very surprised by the smallness of the scene. Granted, some flowers are quite apparent, like the Trillium and Dutchman’s Breeches but others are quite tiny and hidden.
Another thing I love about wildflowers is the absence of human design and control. In “Desert Solitaire” Edward Abbey wrote: “I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. (Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!)” I too have a preference for the wild but I also have friends who are expert plants people and they don’t need to fear my “bricking” their greenhouses!
Here is a part of a poem, “Wildpeace,” written by Yehuda Amichai, an Israeli poet:
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
Even though this final stanza of the poem has been separated from the context of the whole poem I think it makes a wonderful poem in and of itself.
Finally, in a tribute to the fruit trees that are begining to flower I am including some lines from Kenneth Rexroth's poem, “Toward an Organic Philosophy.”
The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible.
As the wind dies down their fragrance
Clusters around them like thick smoke.
All the day they roared with bees, in the Moonlight
They are silent and immaculate.
Enough words! It hasn’t begun to rain; I may yet make it into the woods today.
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